Darwish to speak at Marine Corps League dinner

by Stan Lowe, Chairman (retired), Wyoming Veterans’ Commission
Tuesday, November 6, 2007 2:38 PM MST

Nonie Darwish, author of the popular book, “NOW THEY CALL ME INFIDEL: Why I renounced Jihad for America, Israel and the War on Terror,” was born in Cairo, Egypt, the daughter of Mustafa Hafez, a high ranking Egyptian military officer.

A few years later, Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser ordered Hafez and his family to move to the Gaza Strip, then occupied by Egypt. His prestigious billet was commander of Egyptian Army Intelligence in Gaza.

While living there, Nonie and her siblings attended Palestinian elementary schools, which overload students with an intensive indoctrination of hatred and anti-Semitism. Later, she would attend a British Catholic school, where she witnessed the nun teachers’ charity to the poor whom Muslims are taught to despise.

While in Gaza, her father organized the first fedayeen (“one who sacrifices himself”) terrorists and led raids across Israel’s southern border, killing some 400 Israelis between 1951 and 1956.

Hafez’s children grew up in an atmosphere of bitter hatred of Israel as their father spearheaded the Arab world’s effort to destroy Israel.

He became the first assassinated fedayeen, killed by an Israeli Defense Forces’ bomb, which made him an Arab “shahid” (martyr).

Darwish now believes the culture of Jihad and rabid anti-Semitism it promotes caused his death. She was only 8 when he died. Afterward, she began to turn against radical Islam’s culture and its hatred of Jews and Christians.

Her brother was injured in the explosion that killed their father. He was treated in a Jewish hospital in Jaffa. The Jewish nurses gave her brother excellent care and showed him personal concern, despite knowing Hafez was his father.

The widowed mother, Duryea, took her five children back to Cairo, where Nonie attended the Catholic high school. Afterward, she studied at the American University in Cairo and earned a BA degree in Sociology and Anthropology.

While in high school, Darwish developed a skeptical eye at an early age. She questioned her own Muslim culture and upbringing in a terrorist family. She would ask herself, why the love of violence and hatred of Jews and Christians? Why the tolerance of social injustices? Why blame America and Israel for every problem?

After graduating from college, she worked as an editor and translator for the Middle East News Agency until immigrating to the United States in 1978 with her husband. Ultimately, she became a U.S. citizen.

Darwish began attending a non-denominational evangelical church, eventually converting to Christianity. She could no longer accept the Muslim faith after finding that even in U.S. mosques, the “sermons” were radical, anti-American and anti-peace diatribes.

A mother of three, she became a freelance writer, a public speaker and an interpreter. Her articles were published widely, and she has spoken coast to coast carrying a message of reconciliation, acceptance and understanding.

She advocates correcting the way radical Islamists misinterpret the Koran, peace in the Middle East and changing the way some Muslim men mistreat women.

She is under a fatwa (death order) for blaming the lies of Arab media and leadership for misinforming and deliberately inciting Arab street rage and violence.

She founded Arabs for Israel, also the Internet Web site www.ArabsforIsrael.com, as forums for Muslims and Arabs to express support for Israel.

Darwish’s book, first published last year, instantly received high accolades from other writers on radical Islam and knowledgeable political and military figures. It is a must read for a better understanding of Jihad terrorism.

Darwish will address the annual Marine Corps’ birthday party in Casper on Nov. 15 at the Casper Petroleum Club. Dinner, choice of brisket or chicken, is $30 per person. It begins at 6 p.m.

A limited number of reservations for the public are available. Call Leo Sanchez, commandant of the Platte River Unit, Marine Corps League, at 265-4579 right away for one, and mail your check to Marine Corps League, PO Box 50716, Casper 82602.

Casper book stores have her book for autographing, or it can be purchased that night.

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